Anonymous BitTorrent for life, at a reasonable cost
Mikey 5 commentsUpdate: It turns out this offer is a scam. More info here.
While there are many dubious online services that play a role in making it easier for people to download copyrighted content, many of them have evaded the law by way of being a legitimate service in other arenas. P2P clients come to mind yet they are also a common legit platform for obtaining Linux distros and other free software.
But a new startup is making no illusions about their new service and what it's most suited for, by offering a lifetime of anonymous BitTorrent for only $US50.
According to TorrentFreak this is a real deal and it won't surprise me at all to see this offer being taken up by many.
According to their web site, VPN4Life (I love that name) offers "The most secure, most dependable and fastest VPN on the net". The first 100 customers get a discounted price at just $US29, and time of writing there are 98 discounted spots left.
I wonder how the RIAA and similar organisations will respond to this, if they can at all. I'm assuming the service is based in a country beyond their jurisdiction (Sweden comes to mind), and we all know how successful they have been trying to prosectute The Pirate Bay in the past.
Kline
Friday 2nd January 2009 | 12:35 PMYou mean to say we aren't already torrenting anonymously? I always thought that was one of the attractions.
I just wish I could figure out the whole torrent thing, but I guess I don't have too much need for it. The only thing I've used it for was downloading Ubuntu...
EricVonZipper
Saturday 3rd January 2009 | 12:03 AMKline, unless you're using a VPN (or similar) service/setup, you're not anonymous in the slightest, not even close.
Also, speed issues are present with VPN (slower), from what i've personally experienced.
I'll stick to the NNTP protocol, which is Usenet.
Ok, I have to pay for a usenet/newsgroup provider, which I pay $US11.00 a month for unlimited download and speeds. No uploading needed, no seeding and that other rubbish.
I constantly (and I mean every single time, without fail) max-out my download speed, which is 25mbit. Not to mention full SSL connection.
Anyway, regarding this article. I can't see VPN4Life being around for long. I hope I'm wrong as it is a decent service for torrent users.
Nice article Mikey, it has my interest.
17 spots left now! It's still worth it at $50 anyway.
Rodney
Friday 2nd January 2009 | 12:35 PMHow huge is their bandwidth bill going to be? :-P